western digital HD -- the click of death!

[wuboy]

i have a question for all...
have you ever had problems with WD hard drives? or am i just unlucky!

ive never experienced HD failure (*knock on wood*) with quantum, maxtor, ibm, fujitsu HDs, but recently i used some old WD drives (a 4GB and a 13GB) which make these nasty clicking sounds!

now is it just coincidence, or is does this happen to others as well?

just curious... thanks

 

[jdini76]

I have experienced these sounds too. The results are not good. once you hear that sound I would back your data up (or is it "I would back my data up"). Anyway, I have ignored those sounds and about two months later the drive quit on me. also go to western digital.com and download the diagnostics program they have it will tell you if you need to replace the drive.

 

[Idz21]

I have actually experienced this problem with all my WD drives. The last victim of this was my 10 gig, which still works if I place it in the right position I think this is #3 for me with the WD click ups. I think it's time to start buyin IBM drives?


But yea the reason the click occurs is when the drive is active and you jolt ur chassis and the drive heads bump against the casing of the drive itself. Or if you flip over the drive while it's on. But as you can see the temporary solution i found to this problem is to try and place it in the right position, and it'll still work fine But not for long i assume. My 10 gig still drags along whenever I need some info off it, i just plug it back in and retreive it

 

[Scudtech]

Uh... this isn't the same as a constant, quiet clicking noise linked with hard drive usage is it? My WD drive has been making this same noise since I've gotten it -- about 3 years ago. Just making sure, since I can see how someone would be surpried by this behavior after using hard drives of the more quiet variety (like my Maxtor).

 

[DaiShan]

no the click of death is a different sound, I got it on my last 2 western digitals, and both of the RMA's i got were dead, finally I said screw it and bought a couple of maxtors, haven't had a problem yet.

 

[Prototype]

This clicking sound happens of a brand new WD 80 GB I bought. Right from installing it this sound started, and I can't get this drive to work yet.
I planned on using it for digital video projects...but now I'm scared too.

 

[wuboy]

ok so it isnt just my bad luck, it is a trend.
perhaps this is why WD drives are relatively cheaper than others... i'd stay away from them from now on...

the clicking noise that i hear starts before bios loads up. you hear many *CLICKs* and then BIOS cannot detect the drive.
the other problem that i've seen is that it loads up fine, but somehow fails during the computer's uptime... this likely causes the OS to freeze and perhaps even give a BSOD...

so now we not only have BSOD, also we have WDCOD (Western Digital Click of Death)!

 

[exp]

I've never had a problem with Western Digital drives specifically, but I did have two IBM drives crap out on me and both of them clicked like hell before finally biting the dust. You are actually lucky because this gives you a shot to backup all your data.

 

[phlashphire]

So in summary... guess it's prob safe to assume that there are no real dependable drives, and all brands are susceptable to this kind of failure.